Arson
by Kaesteranya
Summary: My collection of drabbles for Roy Mustang, Riza Hawkeye, and sometimes, the dead Brigadier General between them. Some pieces contain spoilers for the later half of the series, with hints of relationships that go both ways on all fronts.
1. Arson

**Arson**

Those days, two words came to mind whenever she watched him, whether it was from behind as he walked down the marble steps of Headquarters or from a distance as he haunted the corridors like a ghost, a pale and rapidly thinning shadow of the powerful soldier he was supposed to be.

Caged tiger. That was it. Riza Hawkeye shifted her gaze away from the sight of her superior burning the carpet beneath his boots. _Request funding for upholstery repair within the next two weeks,_she wrote down.

"Sir."

"In a moment."

Step, step, step, step, turn. True to the grace of man who had but to snap his fingers in order to reduce anything in his way — be it wall, be it man — to cinders, Colonel Roy Mustang was precise down to the last detail, even when he was agitated.

"It's urgent."

"If you need my signature, put it away with the rest of it. It'll be signed by 3:30."

3:30. Two hours. In two hours, she could savor a nice, hot, Black Hayate-free soak in her bathtub. In two hours, a severely depressed man could go out for a drink, slink back to a cold apartment whose bed had gone back to containing only one body at a time, slump down, find a gun in the drawer and end it. But she had to remember that the colonel was not severely depressed. He was the Flame Alchemist. He was a soldier, a murderer for the State. He was beyond such pettiness.

"Colonel."

"That's 'sir' and 'colonel' in under two minutes. Call me by name, and we can all buy a bottle of champagne in celebration."

The smile flashed like a knife. Knives made her think of Brigadier General Hughes and the single lot where they had buried him with the State's heroes. She could not afford to dwell on that, not with Colonel Roy Mustang meeting her gaze, eyes dark and fathomless and full of shadows similar to the rings smudging the skin below them. They glared at Riza, making her wonder how many nights her superior must have lost to sleeplessness since rain had come on a cloudless day at the cemetery.

"_No… it's raining."_

One man, shoulders shaking, braced against the crushing blow of a pain that no one should have been allowed to bear alone, but they were soldiers. They were trained for this sort of thing. There were things she would not tell her superior, little shifts she saw in him that were enough to make something in her want to reach out and hold him, just hold him, in the hopes that he wasn't going to shake himself apart.

"Hawkeye. If you have nothing to say, then let's not waste any more time."

It was the subtle set of his shoulders, the stiffening of his back and the slight narrow of his eyes that told her that he did not want to be touched, or pitied, or cared for. The guarded look in the eyes told her everything, informed her how much he wanted to be alone. Alone, where he could blame himself for the death of a friend.

"It's nothing… sir."

"Then you're dismissed."

Scars of the battlefield. Names, places, dates, numbers, all pertaining to how fast and how well and how many. Grave markers in the grass, reduced to nothing but statistical figures and red tape that she had spent half a year in the Academy learning how to organize. There had been many more before Hughes but Riza knew the truth. Roy needed Hughes the way a man needed water in his lungs. They had been beyond friends, beyond brothers, beyond lovers, and now that Hughes was gone there was nothing left to do but hurt and breathe and kill. Perhaps, the Flame Alchemist knew this too.

It seemed like the longest walk of her life, crossing the distance between her desk and the doorway; maybe it was the feel of Roy's eyes on her, cold and silent, as she saluted, turned from him, and left the room. It was only after the wooden doors clicked shut behind her that she remembered how to breathe.

The others must have realized by then. The man they served was going to slip away from them like smoke. The grief was too deep; he couldn't have possibly been able to claw his way out of it. But they were good soldiers, just like she was. They would follow him, turning their eyes upward whenever another one of his limbs broke off and fell to dust.

One deep breath and Riza had straightened her position, walking with the usual air and presence of command that many respected her for. She tried not to think about her superior alone in the office with Hughes's memory cutting his thoughts to ribbons. Stiff upper lip. Things were easier for them all that way.


	2. Afterburn

**Afterburn**

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It had been a long time since the last one. Back then, during the first few years after the Ishaval Conflict, the nightmares had jealously filled every hour that he dared devote to resting — the memories of every battlefield and all men, friend and foe, lost beneath the sands had considered themselves too sacred to be shunted aside, and thus they had ruled supreme over his evenings. That was, until the time when he learned the virtues of women and overworking. A healthy balance of the two often left him too exhausted to deal with things, and the nightmares did not favor a man capable of ignoring any sort of ailment within him until his own body set itself aflame to purge it.

There had been only one person who could read through the lies, sneak past the mind traps, think four steps ahead of his game, watch every little gesture made or hear each slight inflection of speech and then know him as one knew the way one's life was mapped out at the center of a palm. But taking several gunshots to the most vital parts of your body and being buried six feet under from the surface of the world could change such things.

Roy Mustang rolled onto his back and stared dead at the ceiling of his room, a place that suddenly felt strange to him. It was a cold night but it never occurred to him to put some fire in the oil lamp by his bed. The flames were disgusted with him, he figured. They must have been because he was starting to get sick of himself.

Hughes would have told him to smoke to stay warm, but Hughes was no longer there.


	3. Safe & alone in my sea of troubles

**Safe and dry in my sea of troubles.**

_This one contains spoilers for the death of a particular character in the later half of the first TV series, and in the later chapters of the manga. The title is taken from the 31 Days theme for May 30, 2008._

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When the Colonel disappeared again and none of his subordinates could find him in any of the usual places, the first thing Riza Hawkeye did was check the date. Her findings confirmed her suspicions, and she promptly told Havoc and the rest of the crew to Proceed as Usual for the rest of the day. They followed her because they trusted her word, and everything went by as they normally did with one glaring difference – the Flame Alchemist himself was absent. Riza, however, was biding her time, waiting for the perfect opportunity to deal with the matter.

Once the evening bell struck, Riza logged out, took her coat and left headquarters without a word of explanation. She went to her colonel's apartment, stopping over only once at a store to buy some popcorn. She entered the place with her wares in tow easily, for she had a key that all of the other women of the colonel envied, only that she was _not_ his woman but his subordinate.

"I figured you would want something to eat by now, sir."

"Ah. Thank you."

Roy Mustang turned from the screen just long enough to smile at Riza before he went back to what he was doing – there was stack of reels sitting beside him, and a bigger box full of them at his feet. Riza glanced at the projector screen – there was an old movie playing, one that she remembered her parents, especially her father, enjoying very much because it was a romance set against the backdrop of a desperate war. Riza slipped into the kitchen, puttering about the area with the ease and familiarity of someone who had been in the place a million times before. She stepped out with two beers and a generously large bowl of popcorn; she set both on the coffee table in front of Roy.

"Do you want me to join you?"

"You're welcome to."

He was lying through his teeth and doing it absentmindedly, as though they were talking about menial, simple things. She knew for a fact that he needed to be alone, that it was the day that he and Maes Hughes used to play hokey at the office and hole themselves up at Roy's place to watch old, old films. Roy still continued the routine because it was the only thing he knew how to do – keep up a routine, keep one's self occupied, keep one from going just a little bit crazy over the fact that there really wasn't much else to live for.

Riza knew that she was not wanted but she had to stay anyway, if only to make _her_ feel better about things. So she retreated into the kitchen, made herself some coffee, and hunkered down for the night. In the meantime, Roy reached into the popcorn bowl and opened up one of the beers.


	4. And I see your progress stretched

**And I see your progress stretched out for miles and miles.**

_This takes place during the period where Havoc is hospitalized. The title is taken from the 31 Days theme for March 11, 2009._

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Roy always shows up first thing in the morning, yawning, loudly declaring that he'd much rather be sleeping in the bed of his latest conquest than up visiting a subordinate that couldn't get up without assistance. Havoc, of course, takes it all into stride, throwing in the punchlines as he's expected to, waving off his colonel's complaints as rehearsed.

They're always back to talking about women just before lunch, and somehow, the topic of the one woman in their merry band always, always comes up. In an odd reversal of roles, it is Havoc that ends up doing the listening and Roy the talking, although he doesn't really talk all the much – he just looks weird, somehow. Happy, but also weird. Like he's worried, but that is impossible because he's a man with unshakable confidence in himself and Havoc knew, for a fact, that doubt was beyond his superior officer. Still, it's there, and Havoc doesn't comment on it.

Sometimes, on a good day, Havoc gets to throw in a lewd comment or maybe ask, straight out, when his boss is ever going to be a real man and say the words. Roy scoffs, makes a remark about Amazons, and heads back to work. Most days, though, they don't ever get close to that point.

Riza always arrives three hours after, right on the dot: she's made it a point to drop in because the hospital is on the way to where she buys her groceries or whatever it is she needs for her apartment. Havoc watches her as she peels an apple for him, listens to her as she gives him the lowdown on what's new with the team. Their colonel's name comes up very often, and although Riza's tone is obviously condescending, the look in her eyes isn't.

And this, too, is something Havoc doesn't call his companion of the moment on. He may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but he knows how to read people and when to keep his mouth shut.


	5. The killer in me

**The killer in me.**

_The title is taken from the 31 Days theme for October 22, 2008._

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When she dwells on it, Riza feels as though she has had Roy Mustang's head right within her crosshairs for pretty much the whole time that they have known each other. It was only during the Ishaval Campaign, however, that she came to associate watching him with wondering if she should kill him. The desire used to come from the images she could not stop herself from seeing, ones that involved him blowing away buildings and people with nothing but a look and a snap of his fingers. He had the power of a god, and it scared her, and for that reason she used to think that he was better off dead.

Later, as the campaign dragged on, she realized that she wanted to kill him less because he was dangerous and more because she was probably doing him a favor. Even up where she was stationed in the distant safety of the clock tower, she could see the telltale signs of a zombie in the skin of a living man: it was written all over the way he walked, and lay like a shroud over his face and his eyes. He threw himself into missions like he was attempting something akin to self-immolation, and there was a twist to his lips that told her that he was almost disappointed to find himself returning to base, perfect and whole if only in form and not in actuality.

These days, he's become so very good at being the state dog that's ready to bite the hand that feeds him that Riza sometimes catches herself wondering if he's made a full recovery. She is close enough to him, however, to bear witness to the moments when his eyes go a little dead and when she gets home she takes apart her gun, picks at the bullet and wonders if there's ever going to be one with Roy Mustang's name on it.


	6. Vessels of eternal fire

**How strange that we, perambulating dust, should be the vessels of / eternal fire.**

_This takes place at the end of the original season of the anime. The details on the tattoo, however, are technically a manga-only thing._

_The title is taken from the 31 Days theme for August 30, 2006._

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"Are you sure this is fine?"

"Just because I'm going to sleep with you doesn't mean that I will give it to you."

And she's right, of course, and always so pragmatic and perfect, right down to the touch of pink on both her cheeks and the softness in her eyes as she takes his head with both her hands to draw his face towards her, for a light kiss just on the surface of his lips. Roy is at home with Riza Hawkeye watching him, at ease under the weight of her gaze. Women like her are hard to find, and that is ultimately what makes them so desirable, so deadly.

She once promised to shoot him right between the shoulder blades if he proved himself unworthy of her father's legacy, and it is for that reason that he finds this moment – him slumped in a chair and her nestled neatly over his crotch with her legs straddling his hips – so eerily romantic.

For a moment he wonders if she is coming on to him because she thinks it's the only way to bring him around, to pull him out of the place in his head that he's holed himself up in, ever since he lost an eye and control of the military along with it.

When she's riding him sometime later and he's sheathing himself fully inside of her body, his hand slips out of the tangles of her pale-colored hair and slide down, across her sweat-slicked skin, down the ridges of her spine, over the ink of the tattoo etched over the middle of her back. It is an old mark – the skin is no longer more sensitive than any other part of her body in that area, but she reacts to his touch nonetheless, eyes fluttering open even in the throes of her pleasure to look down at him from above and watch him. He brings her down a little harder upon his cock, and tilts his chin up in order to kiss her.

He stopped wanting what was branded upon her back a long time ago – his tongue tells her as much, as it slides against her own, mixing their breath, their heat, their saliva. Later, as she pulls away the eyepatch to kiss at the scars where his eye used to be, he realizes, somehow, that she already figured as much a long time ago.


	7. Weave, weave the sunlight into your hair

**Weav****e, weave the sunlight in your hair.**

_The title is taken from the 31 Days theme for March 18, 2009._

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It takes Roy Mustang a few years to realize that Riza Hawkeye is growing her hair out. He's not supposed to miss those kinds of details, mind you, and he's a little ashamed over the fact that he missed such a thing when it was happening right next to him/right behind his left shoulder, but maybe he shouldn't be surprised. If he's not tired he's busy and if he's not busy he's tired and she's just always within his peripheral vision either way, alternating between quietly working and quietly telling him to get back to work, sir.

So either way, it takes him a few years, and it would have taken him longer if she hadn't decided, one particularly cold day, to remove her clip to keep the draft off her neck and Roy looks up from twirling his pen and a boring report in time to see her shaking it out.

To Roy's credit, the pen does not drop; it skips over two knuckles instead of one.

A moment later, though, he's forced to stop admiring the way Riza looks with her hair down because the sunlight's at that right angle where it's harsh on any woman who's been through too much and Riza certainly fits the bill. He sees it: the slightest crinkle about her eyes, betraying a not-so-slight lack of sleep, and there's this particular way that she brushes a strand away from his ear that makes him think that really: maybe it's best if she stopped following him around. He can find another person to keep her crosshairs on his back. Someone more expendable. Someone who could come to matter just a little bit less in the future.

Roy tries to bring this up, in a roundabout way, when they're alone in the office eating lunch and drinking coffee. Riza stares at him for five full seconds before informing him, matter-of-factly, that he is making no sense and with all due respect, hurry up with your meal, sir, because there's a stack of papers gathering dust in the archive and she wants each one of them signed by the end of the day.

Later, Riza goes home to her apartment, feeds Black Hayate, sinks into the hot water of her tub and wonders if it was just her imagination, or if her colonel's eyes really did look that sad.


End file.
